The Boy Who Lived
by Growling
Summary: Unknown to all but his closest friends, James Potter had a brother. But, before either of them went to Hogwarts, Harold Ignotus Potter died. Or, at least he was supposed to, until the soul of a future Harry Potter saved him. AU.


Chapter 1

Children's laughter echoed loudly and happily across a pristine lawn surrounded on three sides by forest and on the last side by a grand manor. There were two sources of laughter. The first originated from a boy on the ground. His laughter was the loudest and most boisterous. He was James Charles Potter, first born of Charles and Dorothy Potter.

James was tall for his age, and wiry. He had his father's messy hair in his mother's black color. His eyes were brown and he was almost the spitting image of his father when the man was the same age. At nine, James was just as rambunctious too.

James' gaze was fixed on the figure on a broom doing acrobatics and giggling happily. The broom rider was James' younger brother Harold Ignotus Potter. Harry was a year younger than James and more energetic and mischievous. Hence, the fact that Harry was on a broom (he'd found it in a locked closet that had mysterious opened by itself with the help of Harry, of course) and why both boys found it so hilarious.

Harry had much the same build as James though Harry was of shorter stature. Harry's hair was black as well, though, unlike the other Potter males, Harry's hung straight and thick. He also had his mother's pale green eyes and his face was rounder than James' and Charles.

"Harry, Harry!" James laughed happily, running after his skyward brother and waving enthusiastically.

If James had been a surprise pregnancy to his more seasoned parents, then Harry was more so. Charles and Dorothy were just so happy with James (as they had, for the most part, given up on having children) and were fully prepared to leave it as such and then Harry was conceived and, well, having wanted children for as long as they'd been married, the older couple couldn't have been happier.

Harry jerked on his broom to turn to face James, hands leaving the handle to wave back, grinning widely. Unfortunately, his hands left the handle while the broom was still turning at a fairly good speed.

Harry was flung off the broom. Both boy's faces twisted in horror. Harry screamed. James ran in a desperate attempt to save his only brother, tears streaming down his cheeks as he subconsciously realized the futility of it.

Harry hit the ground with a crunch and a crack, head first, and then a thump as body followed. Harry didn't move. There was a lot of blood. James screamed.

One of the family house elves popped to the scene, squeaked, and popped away quickly. The creature returned with Charles Potter moments later. The man gasped, rushing to his bloody, still son. He grasped the boy, ignoring James' whimpering and sobbing, and just before apparating, ordered the house elf to take James' to Dorothy.

Scene Change

It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to win. His friends were supposed to live. He was supposed to… He was supposed to kill that creature, that man. To do so would be saving the world, saving his friends, his peers. It was to save the people he admired and the people who admired him.

But…

But, he didn't. He failed. Harry James Potter had _failed_ in the task assigned to him by the very fates.

"Well, Potter, it's good to finally see you like this." Voldemort's laughter was high-pitched and close to joyous. It was sickening and was fading as the haze that preceded death grew stronger. The fiend known as Voldemort was still gloating, Harry knew as much, but the man's voice didn't reach his ears or, if it did, his brain did not make the connection needed for translation.

Harry wished he could say that Voldemort's gloating was premature, that he would use this gloating time to recover and prevail, like he'd done many times before. But, that wouldn't happen. Harry knew this. Voldemort had finally learned his lesson and had made sure Harry was indeed practically good and dead before boasting his victory.

The wounds Harry had acquired from the actual battle with Voldemort, if one could call it such, could have been recovered from during the dark lord's mandatory gloating period. They were, however, crippling in such a way that allowed the enemy to neutralize any threat he could have posed.

Firstly, and most importantly to the outcome of the battle, he'd lost his wand. By itself, such a loss would not have been the end. However, beforehand, he'd lost his left arm, at the elbow, to a wayward cutting curse (ironically from his own comrades). He'd cauterized it on the spot to prevent bleeding out. Then his glasses had shattered in an explosion. His right eye was rendered useless. That was when he lost his wand. The magical and physical exhaustion hit hard after that.

But, he still could have run, escaped with all that, could have picked up a stray wand and used that.

And then, from behind, Voldemort hit his shin with a bone shattering curse and he went down. Before Harry could even attempt to return to his feet, blurry eyed and weak, the dark lord crushed his legs. Harry had screamed bloody murder. But, through the haze, if he could just get a wand, maybe he could… Voldemort, looming over Harry, smirking, assured of his victory, removed his right hand with a cutting curse. Now it was hopeless.

The battle had lulled to a stop then, for the most part. The light side, seeing their leader and savior like _that_… Well, they fled because they were sheep following a lion, feeling brave because the lion was there, and fleeing because there was no one to protect them from the pack of wolves out for their blood. The Death Eaters had cheered then, before finishing off those who _had_ stayed to fight.

And that's how Voldemort won the war. And that's why Voldemort felt safe and secure about gloating to his young foe.

Harry had wanted so much. He'd wanted a family, to see his mother and father, to be a father. He wanted to be the favorite uncle to his best friends' kids. He'd wanted to be an auror, to graduate Hogwarts, to have a girlfriend. Harry wished he could live a life without Voldemort, with his parents, with his friends…

Then, Harry died.

Scene Change

Dorothy arrived at St. Mungo's not too long after Charles was forced to sit in the waiting room, anxiously wringing his shirt. It took the woman that long to calm down James, to tell him everything was going to be all right, and then send him off to the Longbottoms for the rest of the day, just in case everything wasn't all right. She didn't want to have him hear that his brother was dead from the mouth of a Healer.

She sat down heavily next to her husband, grasping his hand. She was a plain woman. Plain as a child, plain in adulthood, and plain in her age. Her hair was long, thick, and straight, black like her children with patches of gray at her temples (surely there were many soon-to-be gray hairs from this incident). Her face was lined with the many years of life she'd lived.

The lines of Charles' face were more profound and adamant, pronounced with his worried frown. His hair was stark white and messy with one last streak of its original brown coloring. Above his left eye, brown, was a scar through the eyebrow. He had fallen from a tree as a child and a thorn from a rose bush had gashed him.

Charles grasped her hand tightly, throwing her a grateful glance. Dorothy didn't have to speak for him to know she supported him.

And they waited and waited. And, each time a door opened, the couple looked to it hopefully, then fell back to their silent waiting when the person entering or exiting wasn't for them. It was stressful.

Finally, finally, a Healer entered from a quiet side door neither had even paid attention to and walked tiredly up to the couple. The silent question was obvious on their faces. The Healer nodded and smiled and watched with a quiet happiness the sheer joy and relief that washed over the older couple.

"He's alive, and he'll live," the Healer clarified needlessly. "The little guy put up quite the battle. For a moment, we'd thought we'd lost him, then he came back fighting." This immediately sobered the Potter's up. They had almost lost a son. It was a sobering thought.

"However, I can not be sure of the long term effects. We managed to fix most of the damage. But, brain damage, whether we managed to fix what caused the damage or not, is unpredictable and varying. He could have amnesia or he could be totally non-functioning, or be completely fine." The Healer shrugged helplessly, "We won't know until he wakes up and we run some test."

Charles nodded as he gripped both his wife's hands in his, "Can we see him?"

The Healer smiled, "Of course."

Scene Change

"_I lost, I lost, I lost."_ It was a man's voice. The voice was stunned and so utterly heartbroken that it sounded breathless. It echoed, surreally, like it wasn't quite there, and the owner never revealed himself to disprove that assumption. _"I lost, I lost."_ He continued to whisper. _"How could I have lost?"_

Harry shivered. He'd never heard someone speak with such loathing and sadness. It caused an uncomfortable ache in his chest he didn't quite understand.

Then suddenly he was in a field. There were lots of people laying about, like they were sleeping. But, Harry could tell, he could tell something wasn't quite right, that something was just _wrong._

Someone groaned. Harry looked down. A man looked up at him, but, but his eyes were gone! A thick red substance dribbled down his face from the sockets of his eyes. The man mouthed words but didn't have the strength to give them sound. Harry scrambled back, disgust and nausea pushing at his throat.

He tripped. It was inevitable and he fell on another man. This man did not move, was perfectly still, like he could never move in the first place. Harry rolled away from the man, leaping to his feet, and only stopping when he got a good look at the man. The man looked like the younger pictures of Harry's daddy, but the man had James' hair.

His throat closed up on him. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. Oh, god.

The man's eyes snapped open. They were a brilliant emerald green. Slowly, the man's lips formed words, _"I lost."_ Then the man's eyes bled an ugly crimson, a dirty red, and a wicked smirk formed on a face that was no longer the face of Harry's daddy. _"You all lost. The world is mine. Let it be drenched in the blood of the unworthy."_ And then the world rained blood.

And Harry screamed and screamed and could never stop.

Scene Change

The youngest son of Dorothy and Charles Potter woke screaming, his body thrashing and lashing out at anything that dared touch him. His eyes were wide open but all he saw was a bloody sky and a battlefield of dead. Vomit dribbled out of his mouth. He wasn't cognizant enough to recognize the foul bile.

"Get a Healer!" Charles shouted, futilely trying to wrestle a grasp over Harry's arms but Harry wouldn't stop moving.

"But…"

"Now!" And she was gone only a moment. The Healer's were already on their way, the scream too loud and too violent not to have been heard.

A Healer shot a spell at the boy as soon as he got a clear shot. The effects were not immediate but were decisive. Slowly the energy seemed to sap away from Harry. His limbs were not as fast and his tugging and slaps were not as strong until finally he just sat back in the bed, eyes wide and face drawn. It looked like he'd seen something terrible.

"What happened?" Charles demanded, hugging his sobbing wife. To see Harry act like that… Charles felt like crying too.

One of the Healer's shrugged helplessly while the other Healers waved their wand over Harry to find out. "The best I can tell is some sort of traumatic episode." He glanced pensively to Harry. "I can't imagine what image was conjured up to make anyone react like that, let alone a child. I'm not sure that can be attributed to falling off a broom, but I'm not an expert in brain healing."

Finally, the diagnostic Healer's finished their wand waving. One of them shook his head and spoke, "Nothing shows up that would explain what just happened. All that seems to be the problem is that he has an abnormal excess of brain activity that can not be accounted for. Usually, after such a head injury, brain function and body function is decreased… But, he is healthy and if he doesn't show any more signs of dysfunction, we can discharge him with the consent he will be checked over by a Healer on a regular basis."

Charles nodded tersely. He understood that something was wrong with his boy but that the Healer's wouldn't put the effort into finding out what. Oh, yes, he understood that.

Chapter End

AN: I know I really shouldn't publish a new story but... I couldn't help myself. Although, between you and me, this chapter's been written and done with for at least a year(I think). So, technically, what-I'm-writing-wise, it's not a new story. But oh well.

Anyway, please review. If people don't think its that good, I may not have the confidence to continue posting until its done, and even then, I may just write it to flatter myself instead of with the intent to share.

Then again, my ego may not be able to help itself, but don't let that stop you from reviewing. They often help me write by making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and making me feel the need to please you. So, its a win-win situation. Maybe.


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